


Crashdown

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Crashdown [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate: Atlantis (SGA)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city crashes on earth, and Rodney's life crashes around him, and the stopgap for the disaster is ink; written for this prompt at <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/">comment_fic</a> : "Stargate Atlantis, any/any, How had they suddenly ended up in a tattoo parlor?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crashdown

Everything had fallen apart as soon as the City of Atlantis entered earth's atmosphere. The Ancient city crashing down in the waters outside Frisco Bay was the world crashing down around Rodney's ears.

The world was awakened. All was not right in their universe. The IOA scrambled to set it right, come off as clean and pretty as they could. Heroes, warriors, geniuses, all banded together for the sake of humanity. Until someone took a wiki-leak all over everything and then there were service records. Insubordination. Disobeying orders. Reckless behavior. So many instances of near total-destruction. And the king of it all, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.

And then the IOA went hunting, and the IOA found - Sheppard. Curled around Rodney in Rodney's quarters, exhausted from a day wrangling Atlantis's crews to make sure the city hadn't been damaged in the landing. All it took was a single marine, disgruntled, bigoted, entering when he should have knocked, and the world came crashing down.

Rodney had never liked Major Lorne, not his suspiciously symmetrical features, his lovely dark eyes, the way he stood at Sheppard's elbow ready to smooth the way from the slightest inconvenience, like paperwork or drills or other administrative duties rightfully belonging to the expedition's military commander. But Lorne's voice crackling over Rodney's radio seconds after the marine fled was perfect.

"Get to the jumper bay," Lorne said. "Exfil in five."

Sheppard pressed a hand to his comm, nodded once, obeyed. Rodney's heart sank. He hadn't imagined the smirk that had fluttered beneath the marine's wide-eyed, stammering apology.

Sheppard, still a soldier, was dressed in ninety seconds. Rodney was still shrugging on his shirt when Sheppard dragged him out of the room and into the nearest transporter. Lorne was waiting at the ramp of an open jumper. When Sheppard started to climb into the pilot seat, Lorne said, "Keep your heads down," and Sheppard ducked into the back with Rodney.

They sat, shoulders pressed together, silent, while Lorne navigated the jumper out of one city and into another. He lied to air traffic control with the same smoothness he'd used to calm disgruntled Woolsey and frustrated Carter and exasperated Elizabeth, and then the jumper was landing.

On the roof of a tattoo parlor.

Lorne herded them out of the jumper, which he left cloaked, and down the fire escape. The door opened, and Rodney glimpsed a woman, curved and dark and beautiful, who pulled Lorne into an embrace. Wife? Lover? Mother?

And then children were saying, "Uncle Evan, are you a space pirate?" And Lorne was soothing them just like he had the air traffic control officers, and then the children were going to bed and Lorne's sister, who had swirling black and colored designs up and down her arms, was making food.

Sheppard was still silent as he sat on one of the tattoo chairs, picking through orange chicken with expert chopsticks. Rodney tucked in beside him, horrified at the dim lighting and the needle guns and bottles of ink. The names and numbers of all the diseases one could contract from a dirty needle crowded up against the rest of the panic in his mind. Sheppard didn't move away, just plucked a dish of lemon duck out of Rodney's reach and handed him cashew chicken instead.

Lorne and his sister sat in another tattoo cubicle, speaking in low voices.

"Your friend there's in a lot of trouble, Evan," she said.

"Rodney's a Canadian, and a civilian to boot."

"You're not dense."

"I like to pretend sometimes."

"What's he looking at?"

"Dishonorable discharge at the easiest. In ordinary times I'd say a lifetime in Leavenworth at the worst, but who knows what they could do to him with the technology they have. Did you know, you can erase someone's memory? Even program them with a new set of memories, maybe even a personality."

Rodney hated Lorne all over again, for the calm, easy way he recited all of Sheppard's possible fates the same way he'd once recited patrol schedules and maintenance routines.

"Damn, E. What did you bring back from the rest of the universe?"

"The best and brightest of humanity, made brighter for our time among the stars," Lorne said quietly.

There was a pause, then a scuffle, soft laughter.

"You're a terrible poet."

"Better than you."

"How long do you guys have?"

"Morning, if we're lucky."

"Get some sleep?"

"Take the kids and go to Mom's. I've got it from here."

"All right." A pause, a hug, a chaste kiss. "Do not wreck my shop." And then Lorne's sister was gone.

Rodney stopped pushing food around his plate and set it aside. "Shouldn't we be running? Hiding? Something?"

Sheppard looked at Lorne for a long moment, and Lorne looked back at him, expression unreadable.

Sheppard tugged off his t-shirt. "I need you to do something for me," he said.

Lorne blinked at this sudden disrobing. Rodney resisted the urge to throw himself in front of Sheppard to preserve his modesty, but soldiers had little between them, even when their relationships were totally platonic.

"Anything, sir."

"Don't let me forget," Sheppard said. He gestured to one of the tattoo guns.

Lorne's gaze turned inward, analyzing, assessing. "What do you have in mind?" He scooped up a sketch pad and flipped it open, found a pencil.

Rodney was frozen, heart in his throat, while Sheppard told Lorne about how he had fallen in love. Lorne nodded, making interested noises here and there, and drew. Lorne's pencil brought to life glyphs for the gate address to Atlantis; blocky Ancient text that spelled 'home' but also looked like the Atlantis skyline; the curve of a jumper and a gate that met in a shape like a heart that Sheppard scoffed at and Lorne hastily re-did.

"What about you?" Lorne asked, and Rodney hated him all over again.

But then Sheppard looked at him, and Rodney began to speak, haltingly, and Lorne continued to draw.

When it was done, Lorne turned the sketch pad around. "Where do you want it?"

Sheppard held out his arm. Lorne nodded and rooted around in one of the drawers for what looked like cooking parchment paper, and he began to trace the design onto the paper.

"How long will it take?" Sheppard asked.

"All night," Lorne said.

Sheppard nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

Lorne lifted his chin at a shower caddy. "Shave. Sterilize. McKay, help him."

Ten minutes later, Sheppard's arm was bare, and he was lying back on the chair. Lorne was loading up a tattoo gun with ink that looked like poison, and Rodney really, really wanted to squeeze Sheppard's hand in case it hurt. Lorne used the paper - transfer paper, he called it - to put the design on Sheppard's arm.

"I can definitely get the major outlines done, but the finer shading - that might take another pass," Lorne said. He sounded like he was sure Sheppard would get another pass.

When the droning buzz of the gun fired up, Rodney did grab Sheppard's hand, held it tight, tight, tighter.

Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at him. "Got a problem with needles, Rodney?"

"Just in case it hurts," he said.

Lorne paused, poised over Sheppard's smooth golden skin. "You gentlemen ready?"

"Ready," Rodney said, and Sheppard's hand tightened in his.

Lorne was just wiping off the last of the excess ink when the door flew open. MPs in dark uniforms spilled into the tattoo parlor, fanned out in perfect defensive formation, and there was no escape. Sheppard sat up, rolled his shoulders, and let Lorne bandage his arm.

"Morning, boys," Sheppard said. He had his t-shirt balled up on one knee. His dog-tags gleamed at the hollow of his throat. "What can I do for you?"

"Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, you are under arrest for violation of UCMJ --"

Rodney blocked out the rest. A string of letters and numbers couldn't wipe out the stupidity and bigotry that spilled out of that damned soldier's mouth. Sheppard pulled on his shirt before he let them cuff him, and they led him away.

The MPs filed out of the shop with mechanical precision. Their leader jabbed an accusatory finger at Lorne.

"Don't go anywhere, Major."

Rodney loved Lorne's unflappable calm and dark eyes at that moment.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

When the echo of jackboots faded, Sheppard was gone.

Rodney stared at the empty doorway, at the weak light filtering over the tops of the buildings across the street. Then he stripped off his shirt and reached for the cheap razor he'd wielded on Sheppard hours before. "Me next," he said to Lorne, and Lorne smiled.


End file.
